hotel lobbies are my go-to. cleaner than fast food. no feeling awkward for not buying anything. no one knows if you're staying there or not.

I don’t think that’s legal

it’s kinda funny because you have to analyze the space in a split second. especially in nyc the locations of thr bathroom aren’t always intuitive. once i had to walk through the hot kitchen with active food cooking to go pee

Quad skate = roller skates?

Laurel Skate Park

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Wawa and sheetz have shitty bathrooms. Good for in a pinch, but I drive by them looking for other places.

Hands down, best bathrooms…….Food Lion. They are always in the back. Always cleanish, no one hardly ever goes in them even when I’m sitting there for 15 mins.

Lowes/Home Depot, Publix, gas stations all suck. Barnes and Noble are decent. Target are usually good too. There’s a couple apartment buildings downtown that are unlocked and have clean bathrooms too, but I’m not giving up those secrets.

Source: I work out of a work van doing service calls at peoples houses for the last 15+ years.

HF is fantastic for the tools you may only need a few times, and for specialty tools you don't want to shell out for. It's wild that a good amount of people have never heard of it and just buy whatever is at Lowes/HD.

Lots of good advice. The most important missing is to wear eye protection. If you are worried about injury, don't start by doing anything with power tools, electricity, springs, or ladders. If you do anything with electricity, turn off the power at the breaker and test that there is no electricity before you stick a screwdriver in there.

There is only so much one YT video can teach you, but watching multiple takes on the same project may yield some results.

As for diving in, that's exactly what you need to do. As you do more and more, you'll find it take less and less time to learn new things. For instance, once you've replaced a valve in a toilet, it becomes that much easier to install an entire toilet next time.

There is no substitute for experience. You can do it yourself. It will take longer, especially at first. But there can be real satisfaction in doing the work yourself. Bonus: I find my work is far superior in quality to most professionals because I care more.

Also, do you have any handy friends or family who would help? Having someone assist who has experience is often invaluable.

Good luck.

Honestly, buy quality tools when they are foundations but then either rent from a Home Depot place or buy cheap at Harbor Freight if it is just a once or twice sorta thing.

As for paying, I agree but sometimes the lessons you learn are invaluable doing it yourself. And for some it is a bit of a reach the mountain top high when you tackle something you didn’t know you could do.

Also, don't buy the expensive tools b/c "I want to buy quality that I can use for a long time!" because you will just end up spending $300 on a nail gun + compressor set that you use twice in a year and not again for 3 years. When the battery powered Ryobi nail gun is not only like 5x cheaper but also lighter and doesn't have an annoying compressor to lug around.

I kept buying what construction workers bought b/c it was quality. I found myself spending way too much money for the projects I was doing to the point where I over-analyzed things and then got very dissuaded and just started hiring people to do the stuff I needed done.

I definitely have become the "pay someone to do it" guy on anything more complicated than what my basic tools can handle. I realized that my time is more precious than anything... and that was BEFORE my child was born. Now especially.

My dollar goes further by not investing 9 hours into a project and pay someone to do it for 3 hours while, at that time, I work extra at my job and in long term it pays off 3x in my professional career over time.

Source: This is an extreme example but I once spent 11 hours fixing my dryer. I went where no licensed man should go. I started a small fire. I learned a lot... then i bought a used dryer for $200 and it's been running for 5 years now lol - Waste of time but a good lesson overall.

There was a time when there was public restrooms in cities but starting in the 70s these were delegated to the private sector, and eventually the private sector closed these.

Check out Carter Jones or Southside.

I was also there in 2017! Doubt much has changed tbh

Yeah this pisses me off. We need to complain to the city.

It’s a problem. I carry a roll of TP in my car and a small amount in my backpack/bike trunk and have noted where all the park restrooms are. I often come to the city for recreation and don’t want to have to go into a business to pee. I plan many walks and bike rides around where I know the restrooms to be. Not every park has them and some they don’t keep open all the time.

>get yourself the right tools for any job

I can't stress this enough. I'm pretty frugal and back when I didn't have much money I would just make do with whatever tools I had or could fashion from what I had (and I still fight this instinct on every job even though I can afford tools now). Things are so, so, so, so much easier when you have the correct tool.

You don't need to go buying the most expensive high quality tool you can find, though. Harbor freight is great for those tools that aren't used too hard, but you really need. I wouldn't get anything that takes a lot of stress from them, but their stuff is just fine for regular homeowner jobs.

"There is only so much YT can teach you" My brother, youtube can teach you everything you need to know. Make sure you read the comments first before diving in, lot's of things are done incorrectly on YT. You are more capable than you think. Just get use to being ok with messing up or it not being perfect. Gas & electric (Unless it's simple stuff) are the only things I won't touch. When you do call a handyman or contractor, be annoying and ask them questions on how/why they are doing things and what products they are using. I also recommend getting the classic "How your house works" book by Charle Wing so you understand how your house functions. That will help you form mental connections when you are working on things because a lot of times what you do, can impact something else.

Literally the only person who bought food for staff when I worked there was a 17 year old kid who fuckin rocked

In the same boat and saving this post!

You just have to commit and take on a project. There will be mistakes that you can learn from, and happy victories. This Old House has been on forever and is a pretty great resource to learn the high level version of just about anything. My pro-tip is to always work smarter not harder. Pay a little extra and get yourself the right tools for any job, and with many things DIY, it's all in the prep work.

Like others have said. Dive into the small jobs first. YouTube is your friend. Start with low stakes jobs like painting, hanging a shelf, etc. Stay away from electrical and plumbing until you get more confidence. Anything with gas call a pro.

Also make friends with your neighbors to share tools and skills. It's incredibly valuable and makes for good neighbors.

For YouTube watching I would recommend this old house.

A lot of home improvement shows make for unrealistic expectations but this one builds you up and shows how it is possible.

I haven't been in a LONG time, so I can't confirm if it's still there, but the skate park at Pole Green Park in Mechanicsville used to have a decent half pipe.

Edit: Scratch that. Just saw a recent image and it looks like they took the half pipe out.

Doesn't matter how you feel about tipping. What matters is that the employee was tipped and it's illegal as fuck for an employer to take tips away from an employee.